Christian Caliandro's Mediterranean Meditation on Failure and Serenity

In a personal essay published on Artribune, art historian Christian Caliandro reflects on failure, imitation, and the search for serenity in southern Italy. He recounts a 2016 encounter in Polistena with Nick Celentano, an Adriano Celentano impersonator he first met as a child in the 1980s. Caliandro describes the Italian tradition of musical impersonators as a specific cultural phenomenon tied to national character. He then meditates on the concept of a 'zone beyond failure' in San Giorgio Morgeto, where a sense of harmony emerges from the acceptance of meaninglessness. The essay includes references to Harold Bloom, Virginia Woolf, William Blake, Francis Bacon, and Maria Corti, weaving together personal memory, literary criticism, and observations of the Calabrian landscape. Caliandro, a contemporary art historian teaching at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze and a member of Symbola's scientific committee, uses the journey from Siderno to Taranto as a backdrop for contemplating the ancient Greek colonization of the Ionian coast and the enduring presence of the past.